Plans To Relocate Wethersfield Firm Run Into Opposition

WETHERSFIELD — Opponents of a plan to move a shipping business to Progress Drive said Tuesday the truck traffic will hurt neighbors, businesses and future development.

Transport Logistics Corp. wants to move from the Silas Deane Highway to a regional distribution center in the industrial park on Progress Drive. The proposal calls for an office, a warehouse for storing empty bottles and parking for trucks. About six office employees would work in the building and about 12 truck drivers would be on duty at any one time.

The proposal will be discussed tonight at the planning and zoning meeting at 7:30 at town hall.

The business would be next to the Capitol Region Education Council's Hearing Impaired Program. Parents of children who attend the school and school staff say the noise and the traffic are not suitable for the site.

Miguel Rameriez, a parent, said putting a trucking business next to a school for hearing-impaired children would be ``a shame.''

The school focuses on developing the verbal skills of young children with hearing impairments.

``It would be highly problematic,'' Rameriez said. ``Not just for CREC, but for other residents in the area.''

The proposed business delivers materials to bottling plants and regional beverage distribution centers in the Northeast. About 75 trips a day would be made to and from the center, 25 of them with trucks.

Most of the traffic would occur between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m., but a few trucks may travel at other times.

John W. Bradley, an assistant town attorney, said the plan would be a permitted use under town zoning regulations.

But David A. Kahn, who owns several manufacturing companies near the proposed distribution center, said the business is not an appropriate use of the property. He has hired a lawyer and other experts to fight the proposal.

``The goal was to have an industrial park with high- tech companies and a campus-like atmosphere,'' he said.

Kahn said the trucking depot would deter desirable businesses from moving to other property in the area. Kahn's family owns several acres near the site of the proposed shipping business.

Kahn said the company's trailers are not a pretty sight on the Silas Deane Highway.